Let’s Talk About “Cold Email Outreach Strategies” in the Context of SEO/GEO Services: A Hamsterdam Marketing Lesson

By Ethan Lazuk

Welcome to another edition of Hamsterdam Marketing! 🐹

This is a project where we examine marketing topics to learn about their fundamental concepts and apply them to the context of SEO/GEO.

This time, we’ll be looking at cold email outreach strategies.

Cold email is the practice of reaching out to a potential client with whom you’ve not interacted before, with the hopes of working together. And it’s often annoying for the person receiving the email.

BUT, for many SEO/GEO professionals who are trying to kickstart or sustain a business, cold email outreach can be a valuable addition to their acquisition efforts.

I’m one of them: as an independent consultant, I send out cold emails occasionally, so I’ll be basing this article on my real-world observations.

If you ask an AI assistant for cold email strategy advice, you’ll get some generic tips that will lead to you becoming a spammer. Just kidding, partially.

Here’s the standard AI advice you’ll receive (with my commentary):

1. Target Companies Where You Can Identify a Real Opportunity — Pretty good so far. I had a 10+ year career in agencies and in-house, so I’ve worked with a variety of clients. My preference is to reach out to potential clients who are in industries that I’m genuinely interested in, and I tell them that in the email, along with the reason why. For example, I’m interested in working with fertility clinics because I found the human stories of clientele motivating and inspiring.

2. Lead With the Observation, Not Your Credentials — This is where I get off the boat. How many of us have received an email that starts out like, “I took a look at your organic traffic and saw you have real problems.” No one asked you to do that! It’s creepy. Instead, start off by stating what you offer — if they have a need, they’ll be interested — then get into your credentials later.

3. Make Personalization About the Business — Kind of weird wording here, but we get it: personalize your outreach to the person or brand. And yes, that’s great advice. Adding a first name to me is a little invasive, so I like to stick with the name of the brand or business, but then show them you did your research a little bit (not in a creepy way, just that you understand their industry and positioning).

4. Use a Micro-Audit Instead of a Full Audit — Offering something free like a micro-audit can be useful. I usually don’t, though. My audits are worth money, in my opinion. However, if you’re trying to get a prospect to commit, you could offer a micro-audit. I typically find my initial research for the kickoff meeting meets the standards of a micro-audit anyway, but it’s not a bad concept. What you don’t want to do is sell yourself short by offering a full audit for free. Value your time.

5. Sell the Next Conversation, Not the Entire Engagement — This is sound advice. You’re not trying to detail all of your services in a cold outreach email. You’re just trying to get the prospect interested in what you can offer them. If you can motivate them toward a conversation with you, that’s when you can really let your personality and abilities shine.

6. Keep the Email Short — Absolutely. Time is limited, for everyone. Get straight to the point with your emails. Talk about what you offer, who you are, why they should care, and that’s all.

7. Consider Using Short Video Audits — This isn’t a bad idea. A quick Loom video introducing yourself and talking about opportunities could be a nice ice breaker. Personally, I’d rather just link to my website and let the client search up my YouTube or TikTok channel to get a sense of me, but do what you feel comfortable with.

8. Segment Your Outreach — I don’t find this necessary. AI assistants would suggest you should have a different cold outreach for different industries because they’ll care about different business goals. But I find if you keep your offering broad enough — “rankings on Google and visibility in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude,” for example — they’ll understand the opportunity.

9. Build Outreach Around Triggers — This is by far the creepiest suggestion. It’s basically to understand when your prospect is undergoing a project like a website redesign or a big content initiative, and then suggest you could assist with that. But how would you have that information to begin with? It’s a bit of an invasive strategy that I wouldn’t pursue, personally.

10. Follow Up Without Repeating Yourself — Within reason. There’s a solid chance your initial email won’t get a response. And that’s OK. You can always follow up with a reminder, but don’t get pushy or make them feel bad for not responding. Instead, keep it casual — “Just following up on my previous email. If you’re interested, I’d love the chance to talk.” Maybe they got busy and will reply. If not, at least you gave it a valliant effort.

11. Don’t Overpromise Outcomes — This goes without saying almost, but don’t make any claims in the outreach email that you aren’t prepared to satisfy. It may help you get the initial conversation going, but it’ll erode trust quickly, and your goal is long-term relationships.

Takeaways

Cold email outreach is no one’s favorite acquisition strategy, but it can be necessary and effective. The problem is it’s been abused through AI automations, so stand out by being human.

Take the time to handcraft a template that sounds like you, and then personalize it for each prospect you send to.

Don’t get discouraged if you don’t receive replies. That’s par for the course. But I find if you put in enough effort, with the right intentions, cold email outreach can pay off for you.

See you next time!

I hope you’ve found this discussion around cold email outreach helpful.

Stay tuned for a new Hamsterdam Marketing lesson soon.

And if you want a hand with your SEO/GEO strategy, get in touch with me. I’m an independent consultant based in New York City.

Until next time, enjoy the vibes:

Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing!